About
Cassandra performed extensively in a piano quartet through Lincoln Center Stage aboard Holland America Line cruise vessels which brought an eclectic set of programs to audiences. This included music from the classical repertoire as well as contemporary, popular, jazz, and Latin American music. The quartet voyaged through the Caribbean, the Panama Canal, through Vancouver to Alaska, and ventured across the Atlantic Ocean to Europe and throughout the Mediterranean. Cassandra found much fulfillment by connecting with her colleagues and audiences through performance, as well as through dialogue with audiences both on and off the stage.
Education and Continuing Studies
Cassandra studied with Jonathan Crow at the University of Toronto where she completed her Bachelor of Music in Performance with Honours. She continued her studies with Violaine Melançon at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University in Montréal where she obtained her Master’s of Music and Graduate Diploma degrees in Performance. Cassandra was a fellow of OAcademy Music Conservatory’s Orchestral Institute where she studied with Nikki Chooi. Here she received an Artist Diploma with Distinction and is honoured to have been recognized with the Institute’s Exceptional Achievement Award.
In 2019 Cassandra was awarded a Canada Graduate Scholarship which helped facilitate her study of music by Ukrainian composers. She was inspired by the research, performances, and recordings of Ukrainian classical music by violinists Carissa Klopoushak and Solomiya Ivakhiv. Cassandra looks forward to continuing to celebrate Ukrainian culture through music and strongly believes in the importance of doing so at this critical moment in history for Ukraine and the world.
Cassandra is an honoured participant of the 2026 Global Leaders Institute for Arts Innovation alongside her seventy esteemed cohort members, all who work in roles that span a wide range of the arts sector from leadership and management positions to being active artists. This MBA program equips creative professionals to address the unique challenges of the cultural sector today through social science, innovation, entrepreneurial, and operational tools. Cassandra brings her experiences in performance and education in Canada and abroad to this space with the intention of elevating the impact, sustainability, and culture of the organizations and projects she is involved in.
Cassandra plays on a violin crafted by Mark Schnurr in 2013. Cassandra intends to continue making meaningful connections through music with colleagues, audiences, mentors, students, and with the world around her, as well as to living adventurously through music.
Cassandra Leshchyshyn is a vibrant and versatile violinist based in Toronto, Canada. She has performed in orchestras and chamber ensembles throughout North America and Europe and has taught students of varying levels aged four to adult. She values music for its ability to inspire connection with others, with oneself, and with the world around us.
An enthusiastic orchestral musician, Cassandra has held leadership positions with the National Academy Orchestra in Hamilton, Ontario, and performed Vivaldi’s “Spring” Concerto as a soloist with the orchestra. Cassandra was a member of the Scheswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra in Germany and was an honorary member of the European Union Youth Orchestra. With these orchestras she performed in Europe’s major concert halls including the Konzerthaus in Berlin, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. Cassandra has held concertmaster positions with the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, the University of Toronto Symphony and Opera Orchestras, and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestral Institute at Whistler, and substitutes with the New World Symphony in Miami, Florida. She has also appeared as soloist with the Bermuda Chamber Choir and Orchestra.
Cassandra played a key role in establishing the Bermuda Chamber Music Festival (BCMF) which had its inaugural season in April and May of 2025. She is a co-founding member of the Bermuda Piano Trio alongside her esteemed colleagues and friends, pianist Anne Marshall and cellist and Artistic Director of the BCMF, Isaiah Pennington. The ensemble was instrumental in promoting the BCMF and performed at venues across Bermuda including at TEDxBermuda, private home concerts, Bermuda School of Music Faculty Concerts, and at the BCMF. An ensemble dedicated to performing established repertoire as well as to showcasing contemporary works, the trio premiered a commissioned piece, Drifting Light, by the contemporary American composer, Ethan Resnik, at the BCMF.